Heat pump marketing campaign group thinks new boiler ban is ‘unfair and unreasonable’

Banning new oil boilers in rural and off-the-grid houses by 2026 could be “unfair and unreasonable,” campaigners have stated.

Bean Beanland, of the Heat Pump Federation, a lobbying group of greater than 100 members and advises the Government, has now known as on the ban to be delayed. It comes because the Government has backed warmth pumps as the principle various to grease boilers for rural households.

Speaking to The Telegraph, Beanland stated: “To be honest, 2026 is probably looking to be, in most people’s eyes, an unfair and unreasonable timeframe in which to make the change.”

While the Government has unveiled plans to ban the boilers, it has yet to bring the plan into legislation, which campaigners say would give households and the wider industry little time to prepare.

Beanland says more time is needed to allow for the changes to come in. He also wants to wait for running costs to come down and public acceptance to increase.

He believes it should be pushed back to 2028. He added: “Two years to react to something that’s relatively fundamental isn’t really long enough.”

The Government is curretly working on long-awaited reforms in the electricity market. It hopes this will bring down the running costs of heat pumps.

There is also thought to be a shortage of grid capacity with delays for connections already affecting installations in some areas. There are 1.7 million homes in the UK that are not connected to the gas grid.

The vast majority of homes not connected to the gas grid are in rural areas. They often use expensive and high-polluting fuels including oil, coal and liquefied petroleum gas to provide heating.

Conservative MPs have raised concerns that a ban could leave households unable to afford to switch. Or, they could be made to use heat pumps despite concerns about their efficiency and running costs.

On Wednesday, more MPs joined calls to scrap or delay the ban after George Eustice, the former environment secretary, labelled it a “rural Ulez”.

Sir Edward Leigh, the MP for Gainsborough, stated: “It’s fully insanity to have a form of speedy phase-out of those oil boilers. It’s very costly, placing in a warmth pump.

Green teams have additionally accepted the ban must be delayed. Juliet Phillips, from assume tank E3G, stated: “The Government consulted on a 2026 fossil heating phase-out timeline for off-grid houses again in 2021, however by no means issued a response to the session.

“Over the two-year interval since then, the Conservatives have completed nothing to offer rural houses and companies the readability or assist obligatory to satisfy this timeline.”

The Telegraph claims the Government might permit households to put in new boilers previous the deadline, as long as they run extra eco-friendly fuels. Existing boilers will be transformed to biofuel, which backers say reduces emissions by 90%.

Eustace is ready to assist an modification to the Energy Bill when it returns to Parliament within the autumn. The instructed change would imply biofuels are successfully subsidised to encourage folks to make the swap.